The fog of war

25 June 2002 — 10:00am

Hi. Sorry about the Webdiary hiatus, but for the first time in a while I've been in the paper, on the SIEV-X yarn. I'm back in Sydney and after this entry I'll try to leave SIEV-X alone for a while. Thanks for bearing with me - Webdiary should get back to normal soon.

For an excellent archive of SIEV-X material go to zarook. Weblogger Marg Hutton has now added a SIEV-X message board.

4. Laurie Cousins brings news of the captain who DID rescue asylum seekers, after Australian Authorities DID issue an alert before a boat sank.

5. The state of play - my SMH News Review story last Saturday

1. SIEV-X IN VERSE

Helen Smart in Yarraville, Victoria

Since the government started referring to asylum seekers' boats as SIEVs (Suspected Illegal Entry Vessels) how many of us over 40 have had "The Jumblies" on their minds? After all, Edward Lear's Jumblies went to sea in a similar leaky vessel...

The Jumblies

(Apologies to Edward Lear, 1812 - 1888)

They went to sea in a SIEV, they did,

In a SIEV they went to sea:

In spite of all their friends could say,

On a winter's morn, on a stormy day,

In a SIEV they went to sea!

And when the SIEV turned round and round,

And every one cried, 'You'll all be drowned!'

They called aloud, 'Our SIEV ain't great,

But back where we came from we'd meet a worse fate!

In a SIEV we'll go to sea!'

Far and few, far and few,

Are the lands where the Jumblies live;

Their heads are green, and their hands are blue,

And they went to sea in a SIEV.

The water it soon came in, it did,

The water it soon came in;

And each of them said, "We're going to die!

What's that helicopter that just passed by?"

And Ruddock and Johnny in Question Time

Said "Stay in that non-existent line!

For your heads are green, and your hands are blue,

So really don't want to have people like you,

We're rich but we've nothing to give!"

Far and few, far and few,

Are the lands where the Jumblies live;

Their heads are green, and their hands are blue,

And they went to sea in a SIEV.

2. PROOF, PLEASE

Last Monday I delivered written questions to John Howard, citing his categorical statements on October 23, half way through the election campaign and the day Australians learned of the SIEV-X tragedy, that SIEV-X sank in Indonesian waters. This was his big, effective counter to suggestions by Beazley that the drowning of 353 asylum seekers was the fault of government policy.

Here is the note:

TO: PM'S Press Office

RE: SIEV-X

I refer to comments by the Prime Minister on October 23 and 24, 2001, after the media reported the sinking of SIEV-X and the death by drowning of 353 asylum seekers. The comments concern several public statements by the Prime Minister that SIEV-X sank in Indonesian waters, including:

October 23, Radio 6PR

1. "It sank in Indonesian waters, yet Mr Beazley has tried to exploit that human tragedy to score a cheap political point. He implied that that happened because of a failure of policy on our part."

2. "Well his claim that this illustrates a failure of policy on part of the Howard Government, that is a desperate slur. A desperate slur. This vessel sunk in Indonesian waters. Now I am saddened by the loss of life, it is a huge human tragedy and it is a desperately despicable thing for the Leader of the Opposition to try and score a political point against me in relation to the sinking of a vessel in Indonesian waters. We had nothing to do with it, it sank, I repeat, sunk in Indonesian waters, not in Australian waters. It sunk in Indonesian waters and apparently that is our fault."

3. "Can I just make one other point in all of the interceptions that the Navy has undertaken, lawful interceptions we've undertaken, there's been no loss of life, we've been very careful in relation to all of that. Now you've got 350 people apparently tragically died in Indonesian waters, we had nothing at all to do with it in any way and Mr Beazley is saying its our fault. Now I think that's a rotten slur."

October 24, Radio 6WF

"That boat sank in Indonesian waters, it sank in Indonesian waters. It had nothing to do with the actions of the Australian Government and he sought quite contemptibly to link that with the policy of the Government."

I ask:

1. Who advised Mr Howard that SIEV-X sank in Indonesian waters?

2. When was that advice given?

3. On what basis was that advice given?

4. Why were initial reports from Australian Federal Police intelligence (October 23) and contemporaneous media reports that SIEV-X sank in international waters south of Java discounted?

...

On Tuesday, I received this reply: "The reports and advice available at the time indicated that the vessel had sunk off the coast of West Java in the vicinity of the Sunda Strait and within the Indonesian search and rescue zone."

At a doorstop on Thursday, I asked Mr Howard whether he got his advice on where SIEV-X sank from his people smuggling task force, which briefed him each day. He said: "I'll have to check my recollection of that ... but my understanding is that the remarks I made on October 23 ... were based on reports, you know, not only government reports but also media reports."

Mr Howard also backtracked on his election campaign certainty - repeated several times from October 23 to November 8 - that SIEV-X sank in Indonesian waters. "There remains conflicting evidence on that but look, I haven't made a considered study of it in the last few days."

The media reports on October 23 were sketchy to say the least - the boat had sunk `off Indonesia', etc, and authoritative reports came after journalists interviewed survivors in Indonesia that day. The Australian's Don Greenlees filed the most detailed report, published on October 24 under the headline "Overload kills on voyage of doom". He reported that SIEV-X sunk 80km south of Indonesia, in international waters well within Australia's comprehensive aerial surveillance zone.

The people smuggling task force did not brief Howard on October 23 that SIEV-X sunk in Indonesian waters - indeed it got a briefing that day that it sank in international waters.

I again asked Mr Howard in writing for the official source of his October 23 statements. I have checked every weekday since. This afternoon, I was advised that no documents have yet been turned up, and that I should get an answer on Wednesday.

3. WHAT REALLY HAPPENED?

Gabe Trubman

Rarely has so much rubbish been written by so many ignorant amateurs about so little of substance as SIEV-X. The fiasco of SIEV-X is a creation of novo-John Pilgers like you, Margo - and that of self-appointed experts like Tony Kevin. Mr Kevin should better account for his past failures, as a minor ambassador, to protect Australian citizens before he is treated as a credible commentator on matters a million miles beyond his competence and knowledge such as the safety at sea of non-Australians.

***

Fergus Hancock

Nicholas Crouch's comments (More threads in SIEV-X caper, June 16) overboard on SIEV X) have a grain of truth in them - there are so many areas the government is demonstrating sheer inability to understand, let alone govern on issues which reflect common human decency and national opinion, that the case of SIEV-X sinking is only a minor issue.

BUT - there remains a niggling, horrible doubt as to whether senior naval officials decided not to pursue the issue of the launching of SIEV-X from Indonesia because of domestic political group-think.

AND - whether any politicians were ever involved in the decision not to follow up on the initial search for the boat.

If the navy simply was unable to penetrate the `fog of war', as Mike Carlton put it, it would be tragic. If the Indonesian armed forces allowed the boat to set sail knowing it would get into trouble it would be horrible (but a very probable event, seeing the military's involvement with civilian murders in East Timor, Ambon and Aceh).

If the Australian government had any involvement in deciding not to search for the boat because of its domestic political image or because the sinking of such a boat would be a deterrent to others trying to come to Australia, it would be a crime against humanity.

So far, the government has been caught out - if not lying, then at least embroidering the truth - on its knowledge of the launching and sinking of the SIEV X. What else is it hiding?

If there is any more to the story, then the public has a right to know. John Howard has only himself to blame, since this was another key part of his re-election campaign. However, I fear that the `fog of war' will cover over whatever was the actual truth of the navy's decision not to pursue the SIEV-X as soon as it knew of its existence, and provide a convenient cover for the Howard government.

By the way, another point worth considering is whether the sinking of SIEV X has been the main cause of no asylum seeker boats entering Australian waters since January this year. If so, could John Howard be said to be winning the domestic propaganda war?

Margo: I was intrigued by Mike's navy sources referring to the `fog of war'. War????? Does this attitude explain a few things, perhaps?

***

Charles Diamond

Thanks to Tony Kevin for all his whistle blowing efforts. He deserves a medal.

I have some theories on SIEV-X.

I will first quote extract from a November 7 Jennifer Hewett article, Why Beazley Was Kept in the Dark :

"Beazley did have a few periods of despair and self-doubt, of course. When he said in week three, for example, that the drownings of 350 boat people off Indonesia "pointed to a failure of policy," an outraged-sounding but clearly delighted Howard grabbed the "despicable slur" with both fists. It was just when the criticism was beginning to register that Howard was spending too much time on the war and not enough on domestic issues. A remorseful Beazley spent the rest of the next two days scrambling unconvincingly to retrieve his own words."

Since, last October I have pondered why Kim Beazley dropped the small target, "me too" approach on asylum seekers. Why did he come out so emotionally calling the drownings a failure of the Government's policies? Could he have also been discussing the failure to find and rescue a boat they had intelligence on? Was Beazley so moved by the information he had received that he came out so emotionally with that statement? Or was he only accidentally closer to the truth then he imagined, and Howard was aware of it?

Since, it became clear that SIEV-X did not sink in Indonesian waters, I wondered why John Howard so categorically stated it sank in Indonesian waters. In the last week of the campaign when the Australian reported that no children were thrown overboard, Howard was quick to produce the ONA advice to prove he was advised that they were.

My theory is that the reason why John Howard came out so strongly with the claim SIEV-X sank in Indonesian waters was to avoid a debate with Beazley on the asylum seeker/Operation Relex policy. Beazley may have knowingly or accidentally been correct that the failure to rescue survivors did show a failure of the asylum seeker/Operation Relex policy. Howard didn't want any discussion at that time about that tragic failure of that policy. Howard avoided this by claiming it sank in Indonesian waters. He also gleefully launched a scathing attack on Beazley.

This theory doesn't explain the big questions asked by both you and Tony Kevin. I read your question asking if this is a cover up of a stuff up or of something to horrible to contemplate. I look forward to finding out the answers, although sadly that will not bring back the 353 souls who drowned.

***

David Eastwood in Sydney

Margo, since Webdiary's gone quiet I assume you're chasing SIEV-8 (X). Can't keep a good newshound down! My missus heard you on the radio t'other nite elaborating on this sorry tale.

The irony of all this is that in getting to the bottom of this, on top of everything else already revealed in this sordid tale, one may well expose our government and some key public institutions to be utterly contemptible, rotten to the core etc. etc. etc.

BUT, given that the other side of politics is demonstrably clueless and clearly dealing with a major identity crisis, who can the punter trust? No-one, clearly.

I suspect many might find this profoundly unsettling, and perhaps they'd rather the whole sorry SIEV-X tale were quietly swept under the carpet so we could move on.

Else, could this be likely to throw us back into the "searching for answers" mindset the Hansons of this world feed on? A worry for more than just social-economist-elitists like me.

***

Brian Bahnisch in Brisbane

SIEV X: Howard's way

Soon after reading Tony Kevin's original article about the boat that went down late on 19 October with the loss of 353 lives, a hypothetical outline of what happened took shape in my mind. Since then detail has been coming forth incrementally and my simple outline has remained in place. Unfortunately, I don't think the truth is ever likely to be known. It deserves to be known, as there are signs that something very foul lies at the centre of this affair.

Rear Admiral Geoff Smith's last letter of May 22, explaining what Operation Relex knew about SIEV X, was withdrawn for "security clearance" an hour after it was tabled. Senator Hill then cancelled Rear Admiral Raydon Gates' appearance to give testimony. Gates had undertaken a review of intelligence material related to SIEV-X. Now we find that the PM's People Smuggling Taskforce (PST), which was supposed to have known nothing of SIEV X, had in fact dealt with SIEV X on six consecutive days from 18-23 October. These three facts, plus the amazing changes in testimony by quite senior people, indicate that the stakes are high and a cover-up of something quite unsavoury is likely.

A theory

My theory is fairly simple. The Australian Government was quite annoyed with the Indonesian Government at that time. Relations were not good. Some of our senior ministers had been pointedly snubbed; the Indonesians were sick of our megaphone diplomacy and were letting us know. The Australian Government thought that the Indonesian authorities were doing nothing to stem the flow of boats and may have been actively sending them down to annoy us.

Australian intelligence let us know that this particular boat had been loaded at gunpoint with the direct assistance of the Indonesian police. Some-one in Canberra said in effect, "They sent it, let them do the rescue!"

As simple as that.

Four strips of water

My understanding is that there are effectively four strips of water up there. At the extremities are the Indonesian waters and the Australian waters. These are separated by international waters. This stretch of ocean, however, is divided into the Australian sea rescue ("contiguous") zone and the Indonesian sea rescue zone. My memory of the Tampa incident tells me that when a boat gets into difficulties in the Indonesian sea rescue zone, the Australian sea rescue authorities are likely to know about it first. They notify the Indonesian sea rescue authorities, who typically ignore the message. The Australian authorities then go about managing the incident, organising the rescue etc.

In the case of SIEV-X (or SIEV 8 as it probably was at that moment) we know there was a navy ship, HMAS Arunta, 150 miles south of where SIEV X sank. We do know that the air surveillance capacity was busily scouring the sea just north of Christmas Island (Tony Kevin's Salvaging the facts from murky depths, Australian Financial Review, June 21). Was this a case of studiously ignoring SIEV X or was that just where their schedule fortuitously prescribed they be?

We do know also that the Orion 3 aircraft used for surveillance in Operation Relex were regularly patrolling to 30 miles from the Indonesian coastline and that the boat probably sank about 80 miles from the coast. As you have pointed out, Margo, Australia effectively took over responsibility for what happened in the Indonesian contiguous zone when it launched Operation Relex, including search and rescue.

Remote programming

We know that there was close political monitoring and direction of Operation Relex. Commander Banks, the captain of the Adelaide, in an interview for the ABC Four Corners program (To deter and Deny, 15 April 2002), was convinced by a telephone call from, he believed, Commander JTF 639 that the Prime Minister was involved in deciding what to do with SIEV 4 (of `children overboard' fame). He further stated that from briefings with "the Brigadier" he understood that "this was important, and it was going, ah, to government, and indeed the Prime Minister, on certain occasions, for decisions to be made".

There was another very unsavoury incident shown on the same Four Corners program, where the `Warramunga' intercepted a group of asylum seekers and took them to Ashmore Reef, where they waited nearly a week for directions. The boat was then towed back towards Indonesia, whereas the asylum seekers were under the impression they were heading for Australia.

A woman had given birth and continued bleeding. Navy doctors saw her on three consecutive days and wanted to evacuate her to Australia, for which a security permit was required. The Navy record of the same day shows, however, that "the mother's condition had improved, and following specialist advice, the medical officer declared that MEDEVAC wasn't necessary". On the fourth day the doctor "only made a cursory visit" according to the program. Her husband said she bled for nearly a month.

I raise this here as an example of the apparent remote programming of operational matters by the Government. Four Corners reported that "we've been told of a belief on the `Warramunga', as on the `Adelaide', that any decision to move an asylum seeker - even to a mainland hospital - needed approval at the highest level of government." I do think, though, that this incident deserves more attention than it has received, not the least because three young men apparently went missing, presumed drowned, as a direct result of the Navy's actions in returning the boat to Indonesia.

A mystery decision-maker

We know that the PM's task force discussed SIEV X on six consecutive days. Hence awareness of SIEV X would have spread laterally through the relevant agencies to a considerable extent. After all this fits with the main role of the task force - communication and liaison. My experience of more than two decades of government administration and committees in Queensland tells me that such committees are not normally given a decision-making role. Such powers would normally lie with an officer or officers not tied down with a lot of boring committees.

This officer is likely to have certain characteristics. The officer is likely to be senior to the task force chair and have ready access to the "boss" (ie. the PM), the head of the department (Max) as well as to senior officers in the various agencies. I would suggest that the officer is likely to be at the second level of the PM's Department, maybe Dr Hammer's boss.

Such an officer would have sufficient authority to make the decisions or get them made, and have them implemented. The Senate committee may do well to seek out this phantom officer.

Three scenarios

In general terms there would seem to be three possibilities. The two extremes are a conspiracy and a stuff-up. I think it was something in between.

In terms of a conspiracy, Tony Kevin worried initially that the sinking was a "managed event", pointing out that the sinking was pivotal to important changes, all of which seemed to benefit the Howard government (see his 353 dead: this could be our Watergate, The Age May 10).

Immediately after the sinking the Indonesians began to pursue people-traffickers, they quietly accepted boats turned back by Operation Relex and they acceded to the idea of the Bali conference. Finally, the stream of boats dried up, as asylum seekers became increasingly reluctant to pay money to get on a sinking boat.

The notion that Howard's crew would overtly plan such a sinking simply beggars belief. They are not that evil and probably not that clever.

A stuff-up is a possibility, but the frequent changes of story and the heavy actions in withdrawing the Smith letter and preventing Gates from testifying seem to indicate more at stake than a stuff-up. Certainly we were given to believe in the first place that information received was not passed on. In other words, a stuff-up. Now we are being told that the information was insufficiently certain, of poor quality. But this line too is subverted by the notes of the PM's taskforce.

The changes in story and the anxiety about revealing the whole story indicate that it's the cover-up that is in danger of being stuffed up.

Senator Bartlett said that the actions of the authorities indicated a "massive indifference" to the potential loss of life. The denigration of asylum seekers was such that they may not have been thought of as people, rather ciphers in a game. After all the front page photos of the three sisters who drowned and the anguish of the father, who was initially denied the right to see his wife in Indonesia, brought home to many the full human dimensions of the position of the asylum seekers.

Had a regard for human life been our highest priority, it seems to me that action would have been taken to intercept the rickety boat, loaded to four times its capacity, at the earliest opportunity. To me the evidence points to a deliberate decision, either taken at the highest level, or second-guessing the highest level, to look the other way. Whether this was a reaction to the Indonesians or a concern as to how the events would play politically in Australia, does not much matter.

Howard's way

Meanwhile Howard has clearly changed his story. During the election he said the boat sank in Indonesian waters and that it was not his government's fault. He said, and meant, "Indonesian waters" during the election. Now he says that it happened in Indonesia's contiguous zone and anyway it was Indonesia's responsibility for search and rescue. He may be legally correct, but moral responsibility is another matter.

Howard always seems to me a politician superbly practiced in the art of deception. Unspeakable things happen around him, but he always ends up sitting on the moral high ground, even if he has to shovel the mound together himself.

I doubt we will ever know the true story. Almost certainly there is an active cover-up in progress. As Tony Kevin has pointed out, it is virtually certain that many senior officers in a range of agencies knew about SIEV-X. Let's hope some-one sees fit to tell us the full story.

Three ships

Survivors persistently report three large grey ships that shone lights on the people in the sea, but then left. These ships were reported initially by survivors in taped interviews in Indonesia very soon after rescue. The latest account comes from Najah Zubaydi, whose brother Haydar swam towards the ships and presumably drowned (Penelope Debelle's Survivor saw ships in rescuing distance, Sydney Morning Herald, June 20). I think we have to regard these ships as real and I would accept that they were not from the Australian Navy. But there were human beings on those ships too and perhaps some day they will tell what happened.

***

4. CONTRA RINNAN

21 June 2002, Norway Post

The Nansen Prize for Captain Rinnan and crew

Captain Arne Rinnan, the crew and the owners of the Norwegian freighter "Tampa" have been awarded the Nansen Prize for their assistance to refugees in distress.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Ruud Lubbers, assisted by Queen Sonja, presented the prize in Oslo on Thursday, the UN World Day for Refugees.

Lubbers said Captain Rinnan and his crew carried out a very special effort. They gave priority to rescuing the refugees in distress on the high seas not only for one day, but over weeks. he said.

The prize was accepted on behalf of the "Tampa" and its owners by First Mate Grete Bugge. Captain Rinnan, who is on his last voyage with the "Tampa" before retiring, greeted the assembly via satellite television.

The prize money, US$100,000, will be donated to a project set up to help educate Afghan women refugees in Pakistan, the ship's owners, Wilh. Wilhelmsen announced.

***

5. STATE OF PLAY

Tragedy of errors

By Margo Kingston, 22/06/2002

The loss of the SIEV-X was shocking, but none of Australia's concern. Or so we were told. Now the news is not so comforting. Margo Kingston reports.

THE mystery boat dubbed SIEV-X - "X" for unknown - flashed across the federal election screen as the region's worst maritime tragedy. More than 350 asylum seekers drowned, including 150 children. The few survivors who clung to life in the water for more than 20 hours until picked up by Indonesian fishing boats told awful tales of being forced to board at the point of Indonesian police guns after seeing the decrepit boat and the terrible overcrowding.

A tragedy, said the Prime Minister, but there was nothing Australia could have done. SIEV-X sank in Indonesian waters, a no-go zone for our border protection surveillance. Australia moved on.

No-one knew anything. Admiral Geoffrey Smith, the head of Australia's border protection program, Operation Relex, said the first he had heard of SIEV-X was after it sank. The Maritime Safety Authority had no records at all of SIEV-X. The Prime Minister's people smuggling task force, while not emphatic, gave the impression it knew little, if anything.

The knowledge vacuum let Australia off the horns of a dilemma central to the post-Tampa border protection strategy. Operation Relex included full-on aerial surveillance by P3 Orion aircraft equipped with sophisticated radar from 30 nautical miles south of Indonesia to Christmas Island. The plan was to spot a boat as soon as it entered international waters, move a ship to intercept it, and turn it back.

But this exercise in total control brought with it an assumption of responsibility. As the Coastwatch chief, Admiral Marcus Bonser, pointed out in evidence to the children overboard inquiry, the blanket surveillance also amounted to a full-time blanket search-and-rescue operation.

"A comprehensive surveillance pattern was in place doing nothing but looking for these boats," he said. If Australia found a boat in trouble it had a duty to rescue passengers a legal duty and, for the navy, a cultural imperative. And that meant another rescue scenario similar to Tampa, the very scenario the Government wanted to avoid.

So the fact that we knew nothing of SIEV-X except, as the Prime Minister said, that it had sunk outside Australia's surveillance zone was a relief.

Then everything changed. In March Tony Kevin, a retired career diplomat and former ambassador to Cambodia, put in a private submission to the children overboard inquiry raising strong doubts that SIEV-X had sunk in Indonesian waters and asking why the navy did not spot it.

In response, the Defence Minister, Robert Hill, asked the Australian Defence Force for advice. The ADF, which carried out no investigation of what happened to SIEV-X at the time it was lost, was for the first time challenged to prove John Howard's claim. It did a calculation that SIEV-X sank in the Sunda Strait between Sumatra and Java - Indonesian waters. Hill advised the Opposition Leader, Simon Crean, accordingly.

On May 22, Bonser blew the whistle. Coastwatch and Operation Relex had detailed, accurate intelligence that SIEV-X had sailed on October 18, the day before the vessel sank and two days before survivors were rescued. Coastwatch's calculation backed intelligence from the Australian Federal Police and detailed contemporary reports from The Australian's Don Greenlees in Jakarta and co-ordinates calculated by the harbourmaster of the port from which SIEV-X departed that it sank in international waters south of Java within the Australian surveillance zone.

The Maritime Safety Authority had already come clean Coastwatch had issued it with a SIEV-X overdue notice on October 22. The navy was forced to come clean, admitting it had received the intelligence of the boat's departure from October 18. The task force came clean through the release of its official minutes, which showed it was on alert for SIEV-X's arrival at Christmas Island from October 18 and even then feared SIEV-X was in poor condition and could require "rescue at sea".

This week the ADF retracted its categorical assertion to the inquiry that SIEV-X sank in Indonesian waters and Howard admitted there was conflicting evidence on where SIEV-X sank.

Australian officials knew an awful lot about SIEV-X. Indeed, the organiser of the voyage, the notorious people smuggler Abu Qussey, was a top-priority target of the Immigration Department and the Australian Federal Police. Intelligence officers had tracked plans for his latest voyage from August, then tracked the likely time and place of the departure of SIEV-X, officially named "the Abu Qussey vessel" from September. Coastwatch was so confident that SIEV-X had departed on October 18 that it told the task force it had "no confirmed sightings ... but multisource information with high confidence level". According to Government insiders, reports of departures came to the task force only when they were considered reliable, and the ADF represented on the task force always went in search of them. The navy refused to answer Herald questions on this matter yesterday.

On October 20, an Federal Police intelligence officer was so concerned about SIEV-X not being spotted that he told Coastwatch by phone it was at risk because of overcrowding. By October 21, the task force was so concerned that SIEV-X hadn't been spotted that the minutes recorded: "Check Defence P3 (Orion) is maintaining surveillance over Christmas Island." By October 22, the task force gave SIEV-X a name SIEV-8 and the minutes recorded: "Not spotted yet, missing, grossly overloaded, no jetsam spotted." A day later, the awful truth. The AFP reported gruesome details of the voyage, the drownings and its belief that the boat sank in international waters, Australia's watch.

The big question: why didn't ADF surveillance described by the navy in evidence as almost foolproof find SIEV-X? Before the public knew that the navy knew, the navy said it had taken no special steps to search for SIEV-X because its surveillance was already comprehensive in international waters close to Java.

After the public knew the navy knew, it said it had pulled back its aerial surveillance to close to Christmas Island on or before October 19, when SIEV-X was heading our way, and did nothing in response to intelligence reports that SIEV-X had sailed. The navy declined to clarify this evidence yesterday.

Is this a cover-up of a stuff-up, or of something too horrible to contemplate?

The children overboard inquiry into SIEV-X resumes in three weeks.

COUNTDOWN TO DEATH

October 18: Intelligence reports that SIEV-X has departed Indonesia for Christmas Island. PM's task force told SIEV-X and another boat on way to Christmas Island, with "risk of vessels in poor condition and rescue at sea". Coastwatch confident of intelligence "multisource information with high confidence level".

SIEV-X departs Indonesia

October 19: Intelligence again reports SIEV-X has departed Indonesia. Task force told Defence is about to intercept the other boat 60 nautical miles from Christmas Island, and that there could be 250 on board the SIEV-X. Defence later tells the children overboard inquiry it had comprehensive aerial surveillance looking for boats in international waters close to Java, where and at the same time as SIEV-X sank. Later still it retracts that, saying that on October 19 planes had been pulled back to Christmas Island and that Defence did nothing to search for SIEV-X.

At 3pm, out of sight of land, SIEV-X sinks.

October 20: Intelligence reports SIEV-X is "small and with 400 passengers on board (more than four times the legal limit) with some passengers not embarking because the vessel was overloaded". Concerned AFP intelligence officer says boat is at risk due to overcrowding. PM's task force told to expect it at Christmas Island on October 21, with HMAS Arunta (pictured at top), standing by "to relieve possible overcrowding".

Of those on SIEV-X, 353 die. Some in water until 11am waiting for rescue. Indonesian fishing boats pick up 44 survivors.

October 23: AFP reports to task force that boat sank in international waters south of Java, in Australian surveillance zone. Howard tells voters boat sank in Indonesian waters, outside surveillance zone.